What's worse, says Rode, is that her grandson waited five days for surgery to repair his broken jaw.

CTV News reports Thomas was put on an urgent surgery list, but Alberta Health Services said a higher-than-average number of pressing procedures got in the way of his treatment.

"We don’t want to ever see our kids waiting for surgery,” zone medical director Kevin Worry told the Journal. “In this case, where he had been at the hospital for a couple of days, that is challenging to see him go through that. This was an atypical case.”